A few years ago I introduced the idea of teaching students to write single paragraphs by using a temple analogy. Teachers who use this strategy appreciate the structure it provides students and have found more well organized paragraphs as a result.

We begin by explaining to the students that in the Greek temples of old, all the wise men of the area would come together and share ideas under one roof. We relate this to writing a paragraph by asking students to write the main idea on the roof, and the supporting details on the columns. All of the details need to fit under the roof (the topic) or they don’t belong in the paragraph. The base of the temple becomes the conclusion. As you can see from the photo, the roof is green and the columns are yellow. The color-coding cues students where to begin. A red base is added for the conclusion. Students experience tactile input by building temples with craft foam, then transition to graphic organizers in their writing notebooks.

At the beginning of each lesson I teach, I like to place a learning target on the board. I start by drawing a bull’s eye, or target, with an arrow and then write the objective for the lesson in an “I can…” statement. Recently I had the opportunity to provide some job-embedded PD in a 5th grade classroom. The teacher had invited me to co-teach with her so that I could demonstrate some differentiation strategies. I began by drawing the target on the board. Then I asked the students if they had ever seen something that looked like this. Several hands went up. I called on one of the young men and asked him what it looked like. Expecting to hear something like “it looks like a dartboard,” I was surprised when he said, “It looks like the earth.” Not quite the response I was looking for! Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to follow up with, “Tell me more about your thinking.” He responded, “It looks like the layers of the earth we have been studying and the arrow is pointing to the core.” Perfect! Isn’t that exactly what a learning target should be? Aiming for the core of the lesson – that essential element that is most important for students to achieve. I love it when students say such profound things and don’t even realize it!